Big Time Patent Attorney Jumps Into The Patent Trolling Game By Buying 4,500 Patents From Micron

from the abusing-the-system dept

I recently had a conversation with a patent litigator for a big name law firm. He tends to work on the "defense" side of things -- defending tech companies against lawsuits from patent hoarders, who he felt were causing serious problems for innovation. That said... he admitted that watching how much money folks make by hoarding patents and suing big companies for actually innovating, it's really tempting to get into the game. At some point, your resolve wares down, and you realize there's just so much money to be made abusing the system, that it's difficult to resist. We've seen that a lot. In fact, two years ago, we wrote about how many of the new generation of "patent trolls" were former patent lawyers themselves, who felt it was better to make money abusing the system directly, rather than being a hired gun for some other patent hoarder.

In our recent post about Erich Spangenberg, he admitted that was part of his reasoning. After working for a big law firm for a bit, he decided it was more lucrative to own the patents and sue everyone himself, rather than just being a lawyer working for others. In that article, Spangenberg also mentioned that Micron had recently sold a bunch of patents to a well-known patent attorney, John Desmarais. That story is now getting more attention, as Bloomberg has an entire article about Desmarais jumping ship from his big law firm to buy 4,500 patents from Micron and put them into a new firm that will be used to demand money from lots of tech companies.

It's hard to read the article and not be depressed. Here's someone who clearly knows how the system is being abused, and rather than fight for a better system, he decides to abuse the system himself. Such is the state of our broken patent system.

"Here's someone who clearly knows how the system is being abused, and rather than fight for a better system, he decides to abuse the system himself. Such is the state of our broken patent system."

I think if everyone tried to abuse the system, as a rule, it would force the government to fix the system. So in a twisted sense by making the system worse he is giving the government and others incentive to fix it. Things have to get worse before they get better.

the funny part is that he isnt abusing the system, he is using it as designed. your assumption that he will be patent trolling is a big jump. perhaps these patents are for future use. perhaps he is going to get into actually licensing the patents so they can be used, rather than leaving them lying in microns drawer, untouched. perhaps micron has allowed others to infringe on their patents without taking action, but a lawyer by profession feels he can risk his time to push the issue in court.

do you have some examples to the patents you claim he will be trolling with?

Re: Re:

The American Dream

Suing other people for money for patent holdups without developing any of your own products or research - it's the new American dream. I'll bet you a herd of bulls named TiVo that Desmaris files his first lawsuit in Marshall or Tyler. Of course, anyone who knows John knows that he's going to be incredibly successful at this venture. If he doesn't let his ego get in the way of a decent settlement, that is.

Re:

"the funny part is that he isnt abusing the system, he is using it as designed."

So the system is designed to be abused? It's designed to promote extortion and hinder progress and take money away from successful companies who spend their money to innovate and give it to failures who sue for no good reason? Just goes to show you what the patent system is intended to do and provides more reason to destroy it.

"perhaps he is going to get into actually licensing the patents so they can be used, rather than leaving them lying in microns drawer, untouched."

But neither promotes the progress. The former prevents others from using it, the later takes money from the successful and gives it to the failures. Instead, a patent system where these patents are automatically invalidated allows the successful to innovate without worrying about infringing upon bogus patents.

"perhaps micron has allowed others to infringe on their patents without taking action, but a lawyer by profession feels he can risk his time to push the issue in court."

@4 HI LAWYER

yup we got our own lawyer troll trying to tell any human what you just did is well wasted cause its clear if someone buys 4500 patents without resources to build anything all there doing is gaming to get rich off things, and never innovate off and build or build on any of the patents they just bought

SO in the end the ONLY REAL SOLUTION is to stop anyone buying anyone else's patents and if you want it built convince a banker its worth a loan and GO FOR IT

other wise your invention should and is useless to mankind or too obvious then frak you

AS TO LARGE holders of inventions if after a 3 year time you do not build anything of it as you have the resources too build. THE PATENT TIME should go poof,

Re: Re:

which suggests that micron was using them already. so not only did they hold patents, but they actually brought them to market. seems like this guy bought the right patents, one that have some market value.

Re: stop shilling!

wait. most patent hoarders didn't invent a damned thing. they bought a slip of paper and now are making money off someone else's back. only an idiot could even think that this system works. the patent system is broken. has been for a very, very long time.

your post could be consider a prime example of another type of trolling.

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Re: Re: Just a big game

Not saying I have all of the answers. If there is a system then soneone will try to game it. I have yet to see a perfec system of any kind. Does that mean we should throw all systems away? No.

Unfortunately, between the court system and the patent system it is easy to cause enough legal trouble to get people/companies to just settle. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with the patent system, perhaps the problem really lies with the court system. Maybe it should not be so easy to sue any entity that does something even remotely similar to a given patent.

"there's just so much money to be made"

You go awry with the word "made". This isn't *making* money, meaning increasing the value of labor in society by trading efforts with others specializing in different occupations. This is simply legalized theft, "re-distributing" income.

Re: Re: Re: stop shilling!

what? i am saying that the people who are patent trolls don't actually do any work. i said nothing about the people who actually do invent things.

the idea of the patent system isn't horrible; i mean the whole point is that inventors give up the secret to their invention for a government granted monopoly on that invention. where the problem comes in is that people can sell this monopoly without actually making anything.

I personally think that 1) software patents should be abolished completely under the whole mathematical formula rule, 2) if you don't make a product in X years using said patent, the patent is void, and 3) patents can only be used by the person or company that filed it.

Re: Scumbags

For Real?

It's hard to read the article and not be depressed. Here's someone who clearly knows how the system is being abused, and rather than fight for a better system, he decides to abuse the system himself. Such is the state of our broken patent system.

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Really Mike? Are you that naive? Is there any "system" in our socio-political situation where this is NOT the case? I can't name one...

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Re: Re: Re: stop shilling!

There is a difference between taking money from others who do work and doing work without having to worry about others telling you that you can't do this work without paying them for a license. Those who infringe on patents are doing useful work to society, they are making a contribution. Suing them contributes nothing, it only steals their freedoms. As someone pointed out, it's legalized theft.

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Re: stop shilling!

No, it means, I'm telling you that you can't do X unless you pay me. You don't need me to tell you that doing X is beneficial to you, you can figure out X all on your own, so I will simply tell you that you can't do X without paying me. It's not innovation, it's a restriction of my rights.

If I told you that you can't sell hamburgers without paying me because selling hamburgers is an innovation that I came up with, it's my innovation, most would disagree. This is basically what a patent is, a privilege to tell others what they can't do without paying some irrelevant third party.

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which suggests they are using them (or will use them) which suggests they actually have applicable uses, and value.

i am thinking that micron realized they have a valuable patent collection, some of which are already being abused, and sold them off to the lawyer rather than do the legal work themselves. take the big money now, rather than wait years for lawsuits and settlements to come around.

it looks like the lawyer bought active, real, and functional patents. i dont see trolling here, i see someone buying low, applying his skills to the project to "sell high".

This is why we all love lawyers so much, while hoping they all die.

Not only hoping they die, but in such a horrible, painful, and unprecedented manner that making a video of it and distributing it would be one of the all-time money making ventures you could dream up. Imagine being able to see film of an actual lawyer being tortured in a manner that would have made Dr. Mengele blush, until begging to be mercifully dispatched without further ado. And being denied that. Lawyer snuff films! A new industry. I thought of it first, so I'm patenting it, and anyone who disagrees can see my attorney, and torture him to death. Yeah!